Israel Violated Lebanon’s Sovereignty 7,000 Times in 2010
Al-Manar – 06/01/2011
Lebanon Foreign Minister Ali Shami uncovered in remarks published Thursday by the Kuwaiti daily al-Anbaa that Israel had committed 7,000 violations of Lebanese sovereignty in 2010.
“Concerns in Lebanon today are due to Israeli intervention,” Shami said. Shami, nonetheless, voiced optimism over reaching a solution to the Lebanon crisis by Syria and Saudi Arabia.
The United Nations on Wednesday declined Lebanon’s request to protect the country’s natural gas reserves by demarcating its maritime border with Israel.
Shami sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last Tuesday urging him to prevent Israel from exploiting Lebanon’s oil and maritime wealth. He presented the UN with maps to support Lebanon’s facts regarding these apparent borders.
But UN spokesman Martin Nesirsky said in response to the request that the international body was not prepared to intervene in the dispute. The United Nations demarcated the land border separating Israel and Lebanon in 2000, but there is no official naval border.
“Security Council Resolution 1701 does not include delineating the maritime border,” Nesirky said. “We are talking about two different things – coastal waters and a disputed maritime border.”
US sets up center for ‘secret war’
Press TV – January 6, 2011
The US administration is ramping up a “secret war on terror groups” in hot spots around the globe by establishing a new military targeting center, officials say.
According to incumbent and former US officials, the center, run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), keeps an eye on the growing use of special operation strikes against individuals.
“The new center would be a significant step in streamlining targeting operations previously scattered among US and battlefields abroad and giving elite military officials closer access to Washington decision-makers and counter-terror experts,” the officials revealed to the Associated Press.
“The center is staffed with at least 100 counter terror experts fusing the military’s special operations elite with analysts, intelligence and law enforcement officials from the FBI, Homeland Security and other agencies,” they said.
The new military center focuses on “the offensive end of counter-terrorism, tracking and targeting terrorist threats that have surfaced in recent years from Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia and other hot zones.”
The revelation comes while the US military has already increased the number of special operations and commando raids in Afghanistan.
A surge in unauthorized CIA-operated drone attacks in Pakistan along with NATO operations along the the country’s border has sparked criticism from officials in Islamabad and given rise to the anti-US sentiment in the affected tribal regions.
“We’ve gone from 30-35 targeted operations a month in June 2009 now to about 1,000 a month,” said NATO spokeswoman Maj. Sunset Belinsky.
The raids, which Washington claims to be aimed at weeding out pro-Taliban militants, often come at night and often claim many civilian lives in Pakistan.
US officials noted that several other centers dubbed military intelligence “fusion” offices are already operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The creation of the center, according to military officials, was an idea of JSOC’s current commander, Vice Adm. Bill McRaven.
Previously McRaven had set up a military system called “counter-network” using unmanned planes, satellites and human intelligences to carry out ground operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“While directly run by JSOC, the center’s staff is overseen by the Pentagon, while congressional committees have been briefed on its operations,” officials said.
US war addiction needle hits on health & kids
RussiaToday | December 29, 2010
The U.S. federal debt has hit its highest level in over sixty years. But while the public sector is certain to suffer major cuts, the military budget continues to get rubber stamp approval. RT’s Jihan Hafiz finds out how necessary wars are for America or whether they are just an addiction.
NATO sees no end to Afghan war
Press TV – December 27, 2010
A spokesman for the US-led military alliance says the war in Afghanistan will escalate in 2011 as militants step up their attacks against the foreign forces in the country.
NATO spokesman Brigadier General Joseph Blotz says there is no end to the war and NATO needs to keep pressure on the Taliban all over Afghanistan.
“There is no end to the fighting season; we need to keep pressure on the Taliban all over the country.”
The remarks come as war has taken the lives of over 705 US-led foreign troops so far in 2010, making it the deadliest year for NATO since 2001.
This is while another NATO service member was killed on Monday. The Western military alliance says the soldier lost his life in a roadside blast in the south, without providing further details.
Southern Afghanistan has seen an escalation in violence this year.
A recent comparison of internal maps of the UN indicates “deterioration of the security situation” in Afghanistan despite the United States’ recent claim of progress in the Afghan war.
Fighting has recently spilled over into the previously peaceful regions in northern Afghanistan.
The Wall Street Journal compared two confidential “residual risk accessibility” maps and found that violence has worsened in northern and eastern provinces.
UN personnel use the maps to estimate the dangers of travel and running programs.
US President Barack Obama in his Afghan war strategy review claimed that the US-led forces had made progress in the war-battered country.
Obama had pledged a major drawdown from Afghanistan by July 2011. But Washington has confirmed that American troops will remain in war-ravaged Afghanistan for at least four more years.
The US military adventurism comes as the United Nations recently announced that Afghan civilian deaths had soared by over 30 percent in 2010 compared to the same period last year.
The UN says more than 2,400 civilians died in the crossfire across the country in the first 10 months of 2010.
The 2001 US-led invasion was launched with the objective of bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan. After nine years and despite the presence of over 150,000 foreign troops across Afghanistan, militancy is still high.
Obama to spend $5 trillion on murder spree
Largest Military Budget Since World War II
By Rick Rozoff | OpEd News | December 23, 2010
On December 22 both houses of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a bill authorizing $725 billion for next year’s Defense Department budget.
The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, was approved by all 100 senators as required and by a voice vote in the House.
The House had approved the bill, now sent to President Barack Obama to sign into law, five days earlier in a 341-48 roll call, but needed to vote on it again after the Senate altered it in the interim.
The proposed figure for the Pentagon’s 2011 war chest includes, in addition to the base budget, $158.7 billion for what are now euphemistically referred to as overseas contingency operations: The military occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
The $725 billion figure, although $17 billion more than the White House had requested, is not the final word on the subject, however, as supplements could be demanded as early as the beginning of next year, especially in regard to the Afghan war that will then be in its eleventh calendar year.
Even as it currently is, the amount is the highest in constant dollars (pegged at any given year’s dollar and adjusted for inflation) since 1945, the final year of the Second World War. With recent U.S. census figures at 308 million, next year the Pentagon will spend $2,354 for every citizen of the country at the $725 billion price tag alone.
Last year’s Pentagon budget, by way of comparison, was $680 billion, a base budget of $533.8 billion and the remainder for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In July of this year Congress approved the 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act which contained an additional $37 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Next year’s defense authorization of $725 billion compares to, according to the Center for Defense Information, a Pentagon budget of $444.6 billion in 1946; $460.4 billion in 1968, the highest yearly amount during the Vietnam War; and $443.4 billion in 1988, the highest during the eight years of the Ronald Reagan administration’s massive military buildup. (Numbers in 2004 constant dollars.) [1]
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates American military spending for 2009 to have accounted for 43 percent of the world total. Carl Conetta, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, earlier this year estimated the 2010 U.S. defense budget to constitute 47 percent of total worldwide military expenditures and to amount to 19 percent of all American federal spending.
In addition, Pentagon spending has increased by 100 percent since 1998 and “the Obama budget plans to spend more on the Pentagon over eight years than any administration has since World War II.” [2]
With 2.25 million full-time civilian and military personnel, excluding part-time National Guard and Reserve members, the Defense Department is the U.S.’s largest employer, outstripping Walmart with 1.4 million employees and the U.S Post Office with 599,000. [3]
“Add in what Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and the Energy departments spend on defense and total US military spending will reach $861 billion in fiscal 2011, exceeding that of all other nations combined,” according to Todd Harrison, senior fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. [4]
In April Robert Higgs of The Independent Institute advocated that the budgets – in part or in whole – of the departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Energy, State and Treasury and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) should be calculated in the real military budget, which would in 2009 would have increased it to $901.5 billion.
“Adding [the] interest component to the previous all-agency total, the grand total comes to $1,027.8 billion, which is 61.5 percent greater than the Pentagon’s outlays alone.”
His numbers are:
National Security Outlays in Fiscal Year 2009
(billions of dollars)
Department of Defense 636.5
Department of Energy (nuclear weapons and environmental cleanup) 16.7
Department of State (plus international assistance) 36.3
Department of Veterans Affairs 95.5
Department of Homeland Security 51.7
Department of the Treasury (for the Military Retirement Fund) 54.9
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1/2 of total) 9.6
Net interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays 126.3
Total 1,027.5 [5]
The above-cited Carl Conetta stated at the beginning of this year that the 2011 Pentagon budget will mark a milestone in that “the inflation-adjusted rise in spending since 1998 will probably exceed 100% in real terms by the end of the fiscal year.
“Taking the 2011 budget into account, the Defense Department has been given about $7.2 trillion since 1998, when the post-Cold War decline in defense spending ended. Approximately $2.5 trillion of this total is due to spending above the annual level set in 1998. This added amount constitutes the post-1998 spending surge.”
Based on constant 2010 dollars, Conetta further details that the Ronald Reagan administration spent $4.1 trillion on the Defense Department, the Georgia W. Bush administration spent $4.65 trillion and “Barack Obama plans to spend more than $5 trillion.”
He also compares the two previous largest post-World War Two surges in U.S. military spending to the current one:
From 1958-1968: 43 percent
From: 1975-1985 57 percent
In regards to which he said, “the 1998-2011 surge is as large as these two predecessors combined.”
His calculations also include a growth in Pentagon contract employees of 40 percent since 1989, thereby freeing up uniformed service members for more direct combat roles.
The U.S. share of global military spending grew from 28 percent during the Cold War to 41 percent by 2006 and that of NATO member states, including the U.S., from 49 percent to 70 percent in the same period.
Contrariwise, the “group of potential adversary and competitor states has gone from claiming a 42 % share to just 16 % in 2006.
“Had Ronald Reagan -” who is generally regarded a hawkish president -” wanted to achieve in the 1980s the ratio between US and adversary spending that existed in 2006, he would have had to quadruple his defense budgets.
“And, of course, since 2006, the US defense budget has not receded, but instead grown by another 20% in real terms.
“By 2011, the United States will probably account for more than half of all global military spending calculated in terms of ‘purchasing power parity’ (which corrects for differences between national economies).” [6]
The defense authorization bill passed on December 22, despite its monumental and unprecedented size, has been routinely described in the American press as stripped-down, scaled-down and pared-down because an arms manufacturer or two, their lobbyists and obedient congresspersons didn’t get every new defense contract and weapons project they desired three days before Christmas.
The December 22 vote in the House was, as Associated Press accurately described it, conducted without debate or discussion – and “without major restrictions on the conduct of operations” – particularly in regards to the $158.7 billion for the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, $75 million to train and equip the armed forces of Yemen for the counterinsurgency campaign in that country and $205 million more to fund Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield.
Regarding the first vote on December 17: “This year’s bill is mostly noteworthy for its broad bipartisan support during wartime….Unlike during the height of the Iraq War when anti-war Democrats tried to use the legislation to force troops home, the House passed the defense bill Friday with almost no debate on Afghanistan.” [7]
Aside from voting for the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as a stand-alone measure, excising an amendment to allow abortions to be performed on military bases, and refusing reparations to victims of the World War Two Japanese occupation of the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam (apparently $100 million for the purpose was considered excessive in the $725 billion authorization), there was no meaningful dissent in either house of Congress.
Increasing the U.S. war budget to the highest level it’s been since the largest and deadliest war in history while no nation or group of nations poses a serious threat to the country, and to a degree where it effectively exceeds the defense spending of the rest of the world combined, is all in the proper order of things for the world’s sole military superpower.
1) Center for Defense Information
http://www.cdi.org/news/mrp/us-military-spending.pdf
2) Christian Science Monitor, March 29, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/David-R.-Francis/2010/0329/Defense-budget-After-Afghanistan-and-Iraq-withdrawal-a-peace-dividend
3) Christian Science Monitor, June 28, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/David-R.-Francis/2010/0628/Cuts-to-US-defense-budget-look-inevitable
4) Ibid
5) Robert Higgs, Defense Spending Is Much Greater than You Think
The Independent Institute, April 17, 2010
http://www.independent.org/blog/index.php?p=5827
6) Carl Conetta, Trillions to Burn? A Quick Guide to the Surge in Pentagon
Spending
Project on Defense Alternatives, February 5 2010
http://www.comw.org/pda/1002BudgetSurge.html
7) Associated Press, December 17, 2010
Rick Rozoff has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. Is the manager of the Stop NATO international email list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/
Palestinian Statehood: Quality as Well as Quantity
By John V. Whitbeck | Palestine Chronicle | December 22, 2010
On December 17, Bolivia extended diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine within its full pre-1967 borders (all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem). Coming soon after the similar recognitions by Brazil and Argentina, Bolivia’s recognition brought to 106 the number of UN member states recognizing the State of Palestine, whose independence was proclaimed on November 15, 1988.
While still under foreign belligerent occupation, the State of Palestine possesses all the customary international law criteria for sovereign statehood. No portion of its territory is recognized by any other country (other than Israel) as any other country’s sovereign territory, and, indeed, Israel has only asserted sovereignty over a small portion of its territory, expanded East Jerusalem, leaving sovereignty over the rest both literally and legally uncontested.
In this context, it may be enlightening to consider the quality as well as the quantity of the states extending diplomatic recognition.
Of the world’s nine most populous states, eight (all except the United States) recognize the State of Palestine. Of the world’s 20 most populous states, 15 (all except the United States, Japan, Mexico, Germany and Thailand) recognize the State of Palestine.
By contrast, the 72 UN member states which currently recognize the Republic of Kosovo as an independent state include only one of the nine most populous states (the United States) and only four of the 20 most populous states (the United States, Japan, Germany and Turkey). When, in July, the International Court of Justice held that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence did not violate international law because international law is silent on the subject of the legality of declarations of independence (meaning that no declarations of independence violate international law and all are “legal”, albeit subject to the political decisions of sovereign states to recognize or not the independence declared), the United States responded by calling on all countries which had not already recognized Kosovo to do so promptly. Five months later, only three more have seen fit to do so — Honduras, Kiribati and Tuvalu.
If the Arab League were now to call on the minority of UN member states which have not already recognized Palestine to do so promptly, it is certain that the response would be far superior (both in quantity and in quality) to the response to the recent American appeal on behalf of Kosovo. It should do so.
Notwithstanding that (by my rough calculations) states encompassing between 80% and 90% of the world’s population recognize the State of Palestine while states encompassing only between 10% and 20% of the world’s population recognize the Republic of Kosovo, the Western media (and, indeed, much of the non-Western media as well) act as though Kosovo’s independence were an accomplished fact while Palestine’s independence is only an aspiration which can never be realized without Israeli-American consent, and much of international public opinion (including, apparently, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah) has, at least until recently, permitted itself to be brainwashed into thinking and acting accordingly.
As in most aspects of international relations, it is not the nature of the act (or crime) which matters but, rather, who is doing it to whom. Palestine was conquered and is still occupied, 43 years later, by the military forces of Israel. What most of the world (including the UN and even five EU member states) still regards as the Serbian province of Kosovo was conquered and is still occupied, 11 years later, by the military forces of NATO, the American flag is flown there at least as widely as the Kosovo flag and the capital, Pristina, boasts a Bill Clinton Boulevard and a larger-than-life-size statue of the former American president.
Might makes right, at least in the hearts and minds of the mighty, including most Western decision-makers and opinion-formers.
Meanwhile, as a perpetual “peace process” appears suddenly threatened by peaceful recourse to international law and international organizations, the U.S. House of Representatives has adopted by a unanimous voice vote a resolution drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) calling on President Obama not to recognize the State of Palestine and to veto any effort by Palestine to obtain UN membership.
Western politicians and the Western media customarily apply the term “international community” to the United States and whatever countries are willing to publicly support it on a given issue and apply the term “rogue state” to any country which actively resists Israeli-American global domination. By its slavish subservience to Israel, as reflected yet again both in the absence of a single brave voice raised against this new House resolution and in the Obama administration’s recently rejected offer of a huge military and diplomatic bribe to Israel in reward for a mere 90-day suspension of its illegal colonization program, the United States has effectively excluded itself from the true international community (redefined to refer to the great majority of mankind) and become a true rogue state, acting in consistent and flagrant contempt of both international law and fundamental human rights.
One might hope that the United States could still pull back from the abyss and recover its own independence, but all signs are pointing in the opposite direction. It is a sad ending for a once admirable country.
– John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel, is author of “The World According to Whitbeck”.
Waiting for a New Economic Theory
The Economic Crisis and the State of Economics
By SASAN FAYAZMANESH | CounterPunch | December 21, 2010
Economic theories, for the most part, have emerged in response to particular social situations or governmental policies. For example, Francoise Quesnay’s 18th century Tableau Economique came into being in reaction to the plight of the French peasantry, excessive taxation, and government regulation that followed mercantilist teachings. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” theory similarly appeared as a response to mercantilist restrictions. It also corresponded to the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, when inventions and innovations made England relatively prosperous. Thomas Robert Malthus’s population and glut theories emerged in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, when migration of peasants to the cities, unemployment, and poverty became rampant. Karl Marx’s version of the labor theory of value was a response to the revolutionary movements in 19th century Europe, as exemplified by the 1848 uprising and the 1871 Paris Commune. John Maynard Keynes’s “general theory” was developed in the midst of the Great Depression and was a response to the laissez faire economics and policies that prevailed at the time.
It is too early to see if the recent economic crisis—which started in the financial sector of the economy and spread to the productive side—will produce any novel theories. What we have seen so far is different economists reciting some old theories and advocating corresponding remedies. This is exemplified by three groups of economists, ranging from the most ardent supporters of laissez faire to those who see no future for capitalism.
The free market advocates still fall back on the marginalist or “neoclassical” theories that have dominated economic teaching since the end of the 19th century (the term “neoclassical” is a misnomer, but it is widely used). This unreal, a-historical theory started not with analyzing any real economy or human behavior, but with certain concepts in mathematical physics. The marginalists’ bizarre point of departure then led to a peculiar concept of the market that the proponents of laissez faire found quite useful. A market in this theory consists of two curves, a supply curve and a demand curve. “Equilibrium price” is where these two curves meet. Left alone, all such markets will self-adjust and bring about the equilibrium price. This holds for the “labor market” as well, where the equilibrium real wage will bring about full employment. It also holds for the so-called capital market, where the interest rate is determined. Given this self-adjusting mechanism, anything that interferes with the market, such as government or central bank intervention, is considered to be undesirable. Government deficit spending merely results in higher interest rates, and monetary policy ends with price changes, particularly inflation, if the money supply increases. In either case, the “real variables,” such as the level of employment or real output of goods and services, remain intact. In this happy, serene world there is never any crisis, especially a monetary crisis. Actually, in such a world there is no need for money, since all variables are real and money is just a “veil.” Also, in this tranquil and trouble-free land there are no classes, no workers no capitalists; there are only consumers and producers, getting along happily ever after.
When the current crisis began and the capitalist world economy appeared to be on the brink of another disaster, the proponents of the neoclassical theory trembled at first. They retreated and abandoned their usual arguments concerning the glory of unfettered markets. However, now that falling into the abyss of another depression appears less likely, they are back to the theories of leaving the market alone, reducing taxes for the captains of industry and finance and cutting spending when it comes to the working class.
At odds with these free marketeers are various shades of economists whose roots can be traced to Keynes. Keynes clearly saw the incompatibility between the neoclassical theories and the real world, particularly during the Great Depression. He criticized certain laissez faire aspects of these theories and ultimately advocated for fiscal and monetary policies. Yet, since he was educated in the same neoclassical school, his criticism of these theories was halfhearted and did not shake the foundation of the school. A few critical notes at the beginning of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) were followed by some theories that were incomplete, underdeveloped and ambiguous. The result was many possible interpretations of his theories and their ultimate subsumption under the “neoclassical synthesis,” a combination of the old-fashioned neoclassical theories, called microeconomics, and Keynesian theories, called macroeconomics. This hodgepodge of theories became, and continues to be, the regular staple of economics students.
The ambiguities and lacunae in The General Theory also allowed for very different policy prescriptions. Take, for example, Keynes’s theory of the “multiplier,” a theory that looks at the stimulating effect of spending, particularly government expenditures, on output and employment. The theory was ambiguous enough when Keynes borrowed it from another economist, R. F. Kahn, but Keynes added to the ambiguity by stating:
If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again . . . there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.
This seemed to imply that it made no difference if government spending was on useful things or wasteful things. Actually, a number of other comments in The General Theory support this indifference. For example, just before the above passage Keynes simply stated: “Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our statesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better.” Such statements made “military Keynesianism,” or warfare, an acceptable form of economic policy. To this day, the followers of Keynes are unclear as to whether going to war is good for the economy and a stimulant, or bad for the economy and a drag. Thus, we see some individuals advocating the start of yet another war in the Middle East as a way to rescue the US economy and some opposing the wars already in progress by pointing out their overall costs and how such costs are destroying the economy.
In addition, the silences in The General Theory allowed for the simultaneous existence of different types of Keynesian economists. Even though all such economists agree on the need for fiscal and monetary policy, they do not agree on the limit of such policies and the exact method of pursuing them. For example, liberal Keynesians—such as the “Post-Keynesians” who try to distance themselves from the neoclassical teachings—and conservative Keynesians—such as the “New Keynesians” who are quite eclectic in their theories—are often at odds with one another as to how high the deficit can go or what steps the Federal Reserve System should take. They also disagree over such matters as how much regulation the financial sector of the economy needs. Yet, the squabbles between different types of Keynesians are quarrels within the family. All Keynesians, similar to Keynes, believe in saving capitalism from itself; reform, and not revolution, is their aim.
This brings us to the Marxist economists who, when it comes to solving the ills of the capitalist society, believe in revolution and not just reform. For these economists a little more or a little less deficit spending, or tinkering with the money supply, will not solve the long-term problems of capitalism, particularly when it comes to the current worldwide economic crisis. Neither would the financial woes of the capitalist economy be solved by more regulation.
In their arguments, most Marxist economists fall back on Marx’s mature writings, particularly his Capital, the first volume of which was published in 1867. Setting aside the fact that Marx’s economic project was never finished and that his labor theory of value has always been the subject of controversy, Marx’s work is one of the few economic writings that actually tries to address the issue of economic crises. In Capital there are two major theories of crisis, one cyclical and another secular. The first deals with disproportionality or imbalances between different sectors of the economy, that is, between the sectors that produce “capital goods” and “consumer goods.” Marx’s second theory deals with the tendency for the rate of profit to fall over the long haul. However, neither of these theories explains the current economic crisis. It is, of course, true that in Marx’s theory of capitalist economy money plays a central role in production and could therefore cause crisis at various moments. But, there is no detailed and comprehensive theory of money and credit in his theory that would enable us to deal with modern monetary problems.
Of course, one should not expect theories that were developed in the middle of the 19th century to explain unique economic crises in the 21st century. This is particularly true if one believes, as any good Marxist economist should, that capitalism continuously evolves and poses new problems. Thus, any theory trying to explain an evolving economy must itself evolve and grow. That, however, does not appear to be the case when it comes to Marxian economics. Very little has changed in this field since Marx wrote his Capital, as is evident from various books that have been recently published by Marxist economists, as well as the discussions and debates that are going on between these economists.
There is another major problem with the application of Marx’s theory to the recent economic crisis. Given the period in which it was written, Marx’s Capital was not about reform, but was about revolution, a socialist revolution. The work was meant to sound the death knell of “capitalist private property,” the expropriation of “expropriators.” And the sound was supposed to be heard in the most advanced capitalist country, where forces of production had grown so much that they were no longer compatible with the relations of production. Presumably, this would have been England, where the workers would have established the first socialist economy. What a socialist economy might look like, however, was never delineated by Marx beyond a short and vague sketch in the Gotha Program written in 1875. Such a revolution never happened, and a socialist society was never established (setting aside, of course, the Russian Revolution of 1917, when in a relatively less developed country some revolutionary intellectuals, in the name of workers, came to power and presumably established “state capitalism”).
Nearly a century and a half later, there is no sign of workers’ uprisings in any part of the globe, particularly in advanced capitalist countries. We also have no idea, beyond that discussed in the Gotha Program, what a socialist society might look like. Thus, waiting for the working class to rise, put an end to a chronically sick social system, and establish a new order does not appear to be feasible in the near future, unless one has a strong set of religious beliefs, as some “Marxists” do.
What is to be done? Should we leave the markets alone, as marginalist economists argue, even though we know that their two-curve markets have never existed and, historically, when markets were left alone they always fell into crisis? Or should we rely on increasing budget deficit and easy money policy to get us out of the present economic conundrum, as Keynesians advocate? In the latter case, which Keynesians should we listen to and why, knowing full well that none of the renowned Keynesians of our time predicted the 2008 crisis that brought the US economy to the brink of depression? Or should we wait and hope for workers’ uprisings to end the ills of the capitalist economy once and for all, as some Marxist economists are still hoping for, even though there are no signs of such uprisings anywhere in the world?
It seems that none of the prevailing economic theories provide a viable option for understanding and dealing with the current economic woes. Looking back at the history of economic thought and emergence of new theories at particular historical conjunctions, one can only hope that the current worldwide economic slump will generate new ways of thinking and new theories.
Sasan Fayazmanesh is Professor Emeritus of Economics at California State University, Fresno. He is the author of Money and Exchange: Folktales and Reality (Routledge, 2006). He can be reached at: sasan.fayazmanesh@gmail.com.
South Korea to hold drills amid tensions
Press TV – December 19, 2010
South Korea is resisting pressure from Russia and China to cancel live-fire exercises amid warnings from North Korea over the upcoming war games in the Korean Peninsula.
“We have no plan to cancel our exercises,” a South Korean defense ministry spokesman said on Sunday, adding that the one-day drills may take place on Monday or Tuesday.
The North has warned the South that Seoul will face disaster if it goes ahead with the live-fire exercises on Yeonpyeong Island near the disputed Yellow Sea border.
The upcoming exercise “would make it impossible to prevent the situation on the Korean Peninsula from exploding and escape its ensuing disaster,” Pyongyang said in a statement.
It said its military has already threatened “decisive and merciless punishment” for such an action and “does not make an empty talk.”
The foreign ministers of China and Russia on Saturday called for restraint on the Korean Peninsula as the UN Security Council (UNSC) prepares for an emergency meeting over the tensions between the two Koreas.
“China firmly opposes any actions to cause tension and worsen the situation, and demands both sides on the peninsula show calmness and restraint,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.
The Koreas must “carry out dialogue and contact, and completely avoid any actions that would fuel the tension,” Yang said.
The UNSC called a meeting for Sunday at Russia’s request, following Seoul’s Thursday announcement to launch the live-fire artillery exercises.
Meanwhile, the US urged top North Korean leaders in Pyongyang to show “maximum restraint” over the South’s planned live-fire drills.
US President Barack Obama has already vowed to offer what he described as ‘unshakeable support’ for Seoul.
In recent months, the US and South Korea have conducted several massive joint sea and air drills in waters east of the Korean Peninsula.
The North has called the drills provocative and an effort to trigger a war, warning the South against holding more joint military exercises with Washington.
Tensions have erupted between the two Koreas after last month’s deadly clash between South and North Korean forces along their disputed sea borders.
The fighting left four South Koreans, including two civilians, dead. Each side blames the other for initiating the fighting.
The mystery of missile defence
After the latest failed missile defence tests, critics wonder why the US has spent $100bn on the system
By Chris Arsenault | Al-Jazeera | 17 Dec 2010
The cold war ended two decades ago, but dreams of an impenetrable missile shield from Ronald Reagan – who once called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” – are firmly back on the US national security agenda.
Late on Wednesday, the US tested its newest round of interceptors, spending $100m to blast a missile from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean towards California.
The anti-ballistic missile system failed, as the kill vehicle designed to blow the projectile out of the sky missed its target, adding to a long-list of unsuccessful tests for the expensive weaponisation scheme.
Since the end of the cold war the US has spent “approximately $100bn” on missile defence systems, Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defence Agency, told Al Jazeera.
Wednesday’s failed long-range test was important because it involved an attempt to intercept a dummy warhead, rather than the usual testing scheme of just maneuvering the missile to a particular point in space, said Ian Anthony, the research coordinator for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think-tank in Sweden.
Big bucks
Despite constant technological problems with the system, the White House has requested $9.9bn for missile defence programmes for the next fiscal year (2011), Anthony told Al Jazeera.
Those vast sums of money concern Theodore Postol, a professor of science and international security at MIT and a former scientific adviser to the head of US naval operations. The weapons expert, hardly a liberal dove, just doesn’t believe missile defence can work technologically.
View Mapping the missiles in a larger map
“If you look at it as an engineering and defence enterprise, it makes no sense,” Postol told Al Jazeera.
Technological failures and massive financial costs aside, if Barack Obama, the US president, is serious about reducing the possibility of nuclear war, then it seems developing new missile systems isn’t the best way to inspire international trust.
“The US will always say that missile defence is a defensive system,” said Tom Sauer, a professor of international relations at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. “The problem is that the Russians or Chinese may perceive it as threatening or offensive. When it comes to missile defence, perspective is everything.”
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister and a former KGB agent who is well versed in cold war history, called US plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe “very similar” to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
“The Bush administration planned to have a radar station in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland,” Dr. Sauer said. Obama has not ended the missile programme in Eastern Europe, he has just amended it slightly.
“[Current] plans call for deployment of land-based SM-3 interceptors [a modified surface to air missile] in Poland and Romania to defend Europe against short to medium range ballistic missiles,” said Missile Defense Agency spokesman Lehner.
Washington hard-liners
But even though the US and its NATO partners plan on erecting shields in former Soviet bloc countries, defence hawks in Washington are not happy.
“The Obama administration is pursuing this reset policy with Russia. As far as I can tell, it has been completely one sided with Russia pocketing all of the gains,” said Baker Spring, a security expert with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.
The US and Russia have negotiated a new nuclear arms reduction treaty refered to as START, limiting the former cold war rivals to 1,550 warheads and 700 launchers each, enough to destroy the world several times over.
Some Republicans Senators including John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) have said arms reduction could limit US missile defence plans and plan to vote against it.
But blaming weaponisation programmes on Republican hawks would not be historically accurate. The Democratic administration of former US president Bill Clinton pursued a plan to launch 1000 missile interceptors into space, under its Strategic Defence Initiative, which critics call “star-wars”.
“We think the [Obama] administration’s programme should include that,” the Heritage Foundation’s Spring told Al Jazeera.
Postol laughs when asked about the Heritage Foundation, calling them “ideologues” who don’t understand the science behind the military programmes that they support.
‘Disappointed in Obama’
But, like the Heritage Foundation, the MIT professor and former naval adviser is also critical of Obama.
“The Obama administration is making false claims about the technical capabilities of missile defence, like the Bush administration before it. As someone who supported Obama, I find this very disappointing,” Postol said.
Unsurprisingly, Lehner from the Missile Defense Agency thinks the programme is technically sound, despite Wednesday’s failed tests.
“In total, we have had 46 successful intercepts in 58 tests since the integration of the BMDS [a ballistic missile defence system contracted to Boeing] in 2001,” he said.
But Postol says the tests themselves are “basically rigged” with “minimal standards applied to the contractors of what constitutes success”.
There are different kinds of systems designed to deal with short, medium or long range attacks. A basic premise behind missile defence is the idea of hitting a bullet with a bullet, either near the earth’s surface – like the patriot missile defences used in the 1991 Gulf War – or other systems designed to hit missiles high in the atmosphere, or outer-space, where intercontinental ballistic missiles fly.
“The fact that these systems try to operate at these high altitudes makes them vulnerable to simple countermeasures,” Postol said, citing ballons or decoy projectiles which are cheap, simple and effective ways to trick missile defences. “Nobody has been able to come up with an explanation of why the concerns I have raised are not true.”
‘Military-industrial complex’
North Korea and Iran, states cited by the US as justification for missile defence, can easily deploy counter-measures rendering the advanced technology useless, said Sauer, the international relations professor.
So, if the technology doesn’t work, what is driving the programme?
Postol chalks it up to domestic politics in the US, coupled with a desire to appease America from Europe. Republicans support the technology, even though they don’t understand how it works, he says, while democrats don’t want to be called wimps on national security.
NATO, which has been dangling without a clear raison d’etre since the end of the cold war, incorporated missile defence as a new mission at its most recent summit in Lisbon, Portugul.
Sauer agrees that partisan politics in the US play a role, but says the costly scheme speaks to something more profound than bickering between Democrats and their Republican counterparts. After all, the Clinton administration resurrected the programme which could have disappeared after the cold war.
Boeing, a primary contractor for missile defence systems, maintains operations in all fifty US States. Thus, if an unsuccessful weapons programme is cancelled, local politicans will rally to protect it, for fear of losing local jobs and votes, Sauer said.
“Many representatives in Congress would like to see more money for these programmes, they are part of the military industrial complex,” Sauer said.
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